


Real Trip

by Thedupshadove



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Original Statement (The Magnus Archives), Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), but this girl is doing a lot of drugs, extensive drug use, nothing bad happens as a direct result of the drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25555783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thedupshadove/pseuds/Thedupshadove
Summary: Statement of Lucy Diamonde, regarding her search for the perfect hallucinogen. Original statement given 29th of November, 2010.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 15





	Real Trip

_Statement of Lucy Diamonde, regarding her search for the perfect hallucinogen. Original statement given November 29th, 2010. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins._

I was six years old when I decided I wanted to try acid. My family had picked up some mad animated film from the late sixties from the local video store, and I was absolutely entranced. Jaw still hanging open in wonder, I asked my mother how the people had made a movie like that, and she had laughed, and said that they were all on acid. I didn’t know what that meant, so the next day after school I stopped in our nearest library and asked the librarian there, who knew me. She raised here eyebrows, but explained that there was a certain drug called Lysurgic Acid Diethylamide which caused people to see, hear, smell, feel, and taste things that weren’t really there. I asked if people did this a lot and she said that some people did, and used to do so a lot more often in the sixties and seventies. I asked her if it still got made, and it was at this point that she told me that this was actually an illegal substance that was certainly not good for children. This was disappointing, but I remembered that same librarian telling me two moths ago, when I came to her with questions about the Les Miserables cast album, that sometimes breaking the law wasn’t a bad thing. 

So it was on that day I resolved to unite myself with this chemical conjurer of fantasy. I had, however, absorbed the librarian’s feeble pleas about it not being kids’ stuff. In my young mind, I decided that acid was like wine—something that could be very pleasant, but only if one waited until one was old enough to be ready. After some consideration, I decided that I would begin my quest in earnest after I started University, a plan which only gained more favor as I continued my research and found that “tripping”, as I learned it was called, had traditionally been the province of students. 

For the next dozen years I savored the anticipation in the pit of my stomach. It was like waiting for all my Christmases and birthdays all at once. I sought out various books on the subject, soaking up all the preparatory knowledge I could. I doodled swirling designs in the corners of my notes at school, fantasizing about the day when such things would be before my eyes. And as I moved my things into University housing, I was already keeping an ear out for where the good parties could be found. 

It only took a few weeks before I managed to find my way into the orbit of the school’s resident drug connection, an older student named Frank Hame. I asked if he had access to acid, and he said that he did. Unfortunately, the price he named was rather prohibitive to my budget. I suppose he must have taken pity on my crestfallen expression, however, because he said that he was having a party at his flat in a few days, open drug access to anyone who would bring something decent for the snack table. I agreed at once, and showed up at the provided address with two big bags of crisps, two large bottles of cola, and a cake. 

I tried to take some time to chat and mingle, but honestly, I had waited for too long already to wait any longer. I picked a sugar cube up off the table, popped it into my mouth, and waited. 

It didn’t take very long for the effects to start, but when they did….there’s no other way to put this; it was a massive letdown. I mean, I felt a bit….odd. There was sort of a tickle all along my arms. The chatter of my fellow party-goers rose and fell in volume more than I _think_ was strictly natural, but it was nothing like the complete transportation into an otherworld of eye-popping delirium that I had spent the last twelve years promising myself. The most dramatic thing that happened was a sort of large purple-and-green blob appearing in a corner of the room. It was pretty, I suppose, but didn’t do much except wobble faintly. I waited until I was fairly sure I had come down, then said a few goodbyes and headed back to my room, falling asleep with the pit of disappointment still wide open in my stomach. 

Over the next few weeks I stayed in the party scene as much as I could, looking for what I had spent so long daydreaming about. I tried acid many more times, without much better results. I tried Mushrooms, I tried Peyote, I tried just about anything that promised to play with the senses, (or almost everything. Frank had flatly refused to give me PCP or Ketamine) but it was never what I had dreamed of. It was also frustrating, when people noticed my disappointment or frustration, to be offered other kinds of drugs, often marijuana or ecstasy, and having to explain that it wasn’t my mood I was trying to change, but my perceptions. I was chasing a more solid version that wonder that had filled me when I watched that film as a child, and was staring down the uncomfortable realization that such a thing might not exist. 

Then one night, I was at a party thrown by somebody whose name I barely even knew, slumped in a corner after learning that this particular festivity didn’t have any hallucinogens on the menu at all, when a man I didn’t recognize sat down next to me. He was tall, and thin, and blond, and looked perhaps a bit too old to be a student. He asked me what was bothering me, and somehow I found myself telling him, not just about that night’s letdown, but about my lifelong dream and more recent failed quest. He smiled at me slightly and asked if I would be willing to let him help.

I ask you to believe that I am not a complete idiot. I had heard all the same horror stories as everybody else, was well aware that most of them were true, and looking back, it’s a miracle that nothing bad had happened to me already by that point. I was perfectly aware that he might have been dangerous, but….it’s hard to explain, but looking at him, I just didn’t get the vibe that he was trying to hit on me, or indeed that he viewed me as a sexual being in any way. And I was desperate to cling to any kind of hope, so I said yes. I wasn’t sure what I expected after that, but what happened was that he reached out one long, thin index finger and tapped me on the tip of the nose, after which he got up and walked away.

For a few moments I sat there, confused and wondering if maybe he had gone off to fetch whatever it was he was offering me, but I didn’t have time to wonder long before it started. 

You want me to describe it, don’t you? Well I’m not at all sure that I can. First the colors of everything around me grew brighter and more vivid, then the faint sound of a cello began to follow me everywhere I went, and _then_ , everything exploded. Lines bent, shapes twisted, textures rearranged themselves in such a way as to evoke as much as possible a state of animation. I decided to go for a walk. 

On my way out of the flat and down the stairs and out of the building things only got more intense. The railing went spongy under my hand. The pattern on the carpet shimmied in a way both irreverent and erotic. The cello had been joined by twin kazoos. 

And once I got outside….hoo boy. What I saw vaguely resembled the city I had left behind not an hour ago, but all around me everything was twisted and changed and unreal and _better_. As I ambled down the street I saw a ferret on two legs hastily finishing off its stunning evening ensemble with a pair of diamond cluster earrings. I saw a rose growing in a crack in the pavement, and when I plucked it it turned into a snake, which wound around my arm and bit me, which filled my mouth with the taste of butterscotch. And after that things really got weird. 

I was a speck of amber in the violet eye of the cosmos. I was the unquestioned queen, bound and chained by the will of countless subjects. I was come to save the world from the great and terrible beast that was me. My soul smelled of scarlet and my hair tasted like promises. I heard the song of my every ancestor back unto fifty generations. I felt the pulse of every beating heart on my dear stupid home planet. I saw the greatest minds of my generation, and was faintly disappointed, but I forgave them all. I shook, and I exulted, and I danced, and I _loved_ —

When I came down in the early dawn hours, I was curled up in the corner of an alleyway. Checking myself over, I found that my wallet had been taken, but to be honest I didn’t really care. There had been thirty quid in it, but not my I.D. or anything else irreplaceable. My clothes were a little rumpled, but otherwise that was it. I shook myself, then finally made it back to my room, where I collapsed onto my bed and laughed and laughed and laughed. 

That’s it, really. I haven’t seen or heard from him since, and whatever it was he did to me seems to have been a one-dose affair. I should be happy. I actually experienced everything I was looking for and more. I’ve touched something I suspect that few people ever find, and I should be content with the memories, shifting and impossible as they are. But now, having tasted it, living in the stubbornly predictable world around me is even harder to bear than it was before. I want that feeling, want that unreal reality again. I’m not sure how to begin, but I’m going to try to track down that man, and ask him what it’ll cost me for another round. 

_Statement ends. If drug-enduced experiences aren’t already on the list of disqualified Statement material, we really ought to consider adding it. A young woman who freely admits to eagerly sucking up everything she could get her hands on which promised to twist the senses is hardly what I would call a reliable witness._

_Nevertheless, Statements are there to be researched, and looking into this one did turn up something interesting. A few weeks after this Statement was given, as far as anyone can tell, Lucy Skye Diamonde simply….disappeared. Or, well, that’s not entirely true. She seems to have moved out of her student housing, stopped attending classes, and has made no subsequent contact with her parents any other friend or relative, but there are intermittent reports of a young woman reminiscent in description of her, wearing a bright yellow sundress with a pattern of pink flowers and no shoes, her hair long and very dirty, popping up here and there around London. Usually, she is describes as doing cartwheels, singing to herself, or otherwise exhibiting behavior that indicates total happiness. A simple dropout, one is inclined to think. A classic casualty of the Sixties, remarkable only for coming half a century too late. But there is one report of a young couple drawing close to her, whereupon she suddenly stilled, stared at the man for a moment, before grinning wildly and poking him sharply in the ribs, at which point he seized up and let out a strangled shriek, being drawn into what he described after the fact as a dizzying series of hallucinations which lasted for the next six hours. As his companion led him away, she recalls the young woman adopting what she describes as a “pouty” expression and sarcastically declaring “You’re welcome.” What we are to make of this is….uncertain. Perhaps her mysterious dealer not only gave her more of whatever is was, but taught her his trick for dosing other people. End recording._


End file.
